City of Pearl (18 page)

“I'd like that. Thanks.”

“Your bag,” he said. “Targassat.”

“Sorry?”

“A fundamental. Own no more than you can carry.”

“Oh. Well, I travel a lot. Or at least I used to. I just got used to traveling light. Few possessions. It makes sense.”

“It does,” he said. “Empty your bag.”

“Here?” She looked around and stepped onto a broad mat of vegetation, imbued with a new confidence that she could tell the solid road from the shifting bog. Aras caught her arm just before she plunged into bottomless, living mud. Her gut somersaulted and she found herself flat up against his chest, held fast, and his grip hurt. He loosened it instantly.

“Here would be better,” Aras said.

Shaken, Shan tried to enter into the spirit of the lesson. She sat back on her heels and took the contents of her bag out, one item at a time, arranged them and began naming them. “Change of clothes in a waterproof bag, three days' concentrated rations, hygiene kit, fifteen meters of microfiber line, and four clips of ammunition—”

“You always carry arms?”

“Habit. You know what a police officer is, don't you? Well, that's why.” She indicated the knife in his belt, a lovely shapely blade with a notched curved tip. “Is that just ceremonial? A warrior thing?”

Aras looked blank. “
Tilgir.
It's a harvesting tool. I use it to get fruit without touching thorns.”

“Oh.”

“And what's this?”

“A swiss. Oh, you'll just love that.” She thought she might recover the situation by demonstrating how to open its screen. “See how many things it does.” She watched as he accidentally ejected its blades and flashlight. “That panel on the back is the comms unit and you insert data beads in that slot. That bit there houses the stylus and the keyboard. One hundred and two separate functions.”

“It's important to you.”

“Never been without it since I left college.” At least she had bought it herself: there were no painful memories invested in that part of it. “Very old technology, but it still works, and I'm glad it does because there's no way I'd have implants or one of those bioscreens. It's nearly as old as you, maybe as old.” As soon as she said it, she regretted it. “Sorry. Won't mention that again.”

Aras paused, examined the imaging device and fixed her with that animal stare. “Why do you want to protect me?”

“It's a lot more complex than that. I'm EnHaz. And this is probably not how I was intended to operate, but I see a potential environmental and economic disaster. If there's anything in your physiology that would help humans to live longer, my planet is in trouble. Many of us live too long as it is. If we can turn whatever gives you longevity into a drug or a therapy for humans, the whole balance of the population will shift. I can show you the maths. And I don't think my colleagues would be too fussed how they got it from you, Aras, because life-extension pharmaceuticals is serious money, and always has been, ever since the days of the alchemists. You might look like a biped but you're still an animal to them. So we keep it to ourselves. Okay?”

A
glop
behind her made her glance round. A
sheven
had broken the surface of the bog and its not-quite-there shape reared a meter above it, a fragile iceberg. She had no doubt it would be unimpressed by her egalitarian attitude towards non-human species if it were looking for lunch. And here she was, squatting on a precarious mat of living material in a marsh full of creatures that she couldn't begin to imagine.

Aras started to put the items back in her bag. She hoped he had understood the lecture.

“I think you grasp the basics of Targassat very well,” he said. “The rest, as your Hillel points out, is commentary.”

And that was Aras. One moment a complete alien, driven by rigid ethics about plants and how to build and not build, the next almost a man, with a better knowledge of Earth's philosophers and religions than most humans. And still untroubled by the destruction of cities.

“I didn't realize you were a teacher,” Shan said, trying to start up conversation again. “I thought you were a soldier.”

“I do many things. All wess'har do. But it isn't what I am. Do you see a police officer before you see yourself?”

“You think I ask you too many questions. I'm sorry.”

“No, you confuse me. You're too many things and you don't know it.”

What the hell did that mean? She wanted to tell him things, offer him honesty, but all he seemed to do was to prompt her to ask more questions. He was right. It was all she was, a series of pursuits punctuated by anger. She had always prided herself on her discipline, her tenacity, her complete independence from other people: but it was all about journey, never arrival. She had never once sat down and felt whole, nor lost the urge to get up again and find something else to fill her time.

She tried again. “I'm not interrogating you, Aras. I'm trying to understand you.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want to see the gene bank.”
No point pissing about any longer.
“And I want to be friends with you, because I am very, very alone out here. And so are you.”

He walked on with his head down and she had trouble keeping up with him. For a moment she thought she would fall so far behind that she would lose sight of him in the dwindling light and slip off the living road into the cling-film embrace of the
sheven.
Maybe that was what he wanted. She had hit a nerve. Then he slowed down and she caught up. The rest of the journey was in silence.

The swiss chirped about half a kilometer out from Constantine and she flipped the screen open. Eddie was still after her.

“Is something wrong?” Aras asked.

She hadn't realized how attuned he was to human reactions. “Not really. Eddie wants to talk to me about something I did that was wrong.”

“How wrong?”

“Depends who's telling the story,” said Shan, trying to work out if she was relieved or just itching to tell Aras what an unsung martyr she had been.
I'm a good human, really I am. I'm not a
gethes. “I'll tell you one day.”

No reaction.

“I appreciate your patience. Thanks for showing me round.”

Aras still looked unmoved. She had indeed lost his trust.

“By the way, you should get your people to rig you an underwater suit,” he said suddenly. “The bezeri will meet you. Good night.”

And then again, maybe she hadn't. She wondered if she would ever get used to his habit of suddenly changing subjects—and dropping bombshells—without warning. You had to have your wits about you when talking to Aras. She walked down the narrow beam of her swiss's flashlight towards the camp, ready to face Eddie, and so preoccupied with her thoughts that she didn't notice Bennett until he actually touched her arm.

She jumped and found herself ready to take a swing at him. “Sorry, Ade.” She screwed her eyes hard shut in a second of embarrassment. “You startled me. I don't react well to sudden movement. Old habit.”

“We were getting worried, ma'am. Out on that bog, in the dark.”

“Yeah, I know you'd be happier if I was wired up.” His bioscreen reflected green light against the leg of his pants as his arms hung at his side. How much embarrassing detail would it really blab to the rest of his detachment? “But I was perfectly safe with Aras.”

Bennett walked alongside her. Ahead of them, the lights of the compound formed a misshapen constellation against the skyline. “Have you eaten, ma'am? There's probably some of Qureshi's bean korma hanging around.”

“You know, I could even eat that.”

“Right you are, ma'am.”

“
Shan,
please. You make me feel like Queen Victoria.” Being aloof from people on Earth had been a defense, a bunker. Out here, so far from everything she had ever taken for granted, it was a handicap. She really did need a friend.

The mess hall was deserted. To her tired eyes the strip lighting seemed harsh and jaundice-yellow. The green tint, originally so soothing, had begun to look institutional. Ben nett slopped two portions of the curry into bowls and heated them up while she made tea, and they sat on opposite sides of the table and ate. Shan forked over the volatile mix with a rueful smile.

“I'm going to regret this later,” she said, thinking of her digestion.

“Ah, but I'll still respect you in the morning,”

Bennett laughed. Shan felt her throat flush hot, and it wasn't the curry. It had been a long time since she had known what it was to feel bashful.

“You sure that screen of yours records everything?”

“Pulse, BP, location, temperature, you name it.”

“Interesting.”

The conversation slowed and stopped. She busied herself in the remaining curry, conscious of the sounds of her own jaw and heart, grinding and pulsing unnaturally loudly in her head. She knew she had to walk away from this.

“I'd better get my head down,” she said, and got up to rinse the bowl. She patted Bennett's shoulder. It felt warm and very hard under her hand. “Good night, Ade.”

He paused. “G'night, Shan.”

Discipline.
She said the mantra a few times under her breath as she wandered down the deserted passage that joined the cabins to the mess.
Discipline.
It was a fine thing to live by, but sometimes it wasn't much comfort.

Sod technology,
she thought, and closed the cabin door.

“Look what I found!” Surendra Parekh carried a small dish into the mess hall and laid it carefully on the table, although several of the team were eating lunch. They looked, and groaned.

“I hate calamari,” said Paretti.

Eddie took notice immediately. The scientists huddled over the contents of the dish, which proved to be a small jelly creature, oohing and aahing as Parekh carefully lifted flaps and tentacles with a spatula to show off her find. Mesevy didn't join in.

“Which part of the phrase
don't take samples
didn't you understand?” Eddie asked. It broke the congratulatory murmurs. “Where did you get it?”

“Hey, it's already dead,” said Parekh.

“But how did you get it back here?”

“Didn't you ever shoplift as a kid, Eddie?”

“No, I damn well did not.”

“Well, you'd be amazed how little time it takes to pick up something small when someone looks away for a few moments. Marine Webster doesn't have eyes in her backside.”

Eddie tossed a mental coin between being the popular kid in the class and doing the sensible thing. Heads said the latter. He stood up. “Jesus Christ, you think this is some sort of game with Frankland, do you?”

“It's dead. What's the problem?”

“What are you planning to do with it?”

“Well, I was thinking of serving it with a nice beurre manié sauce—look, what do you think marine biologists do with specimens? We dissect 'em.”

“You put it right back where you found it.”

“Oh, come on.”

“We're going to be in serious shit over this.”

Parekh gave him a pitying look, the sort reserved for the hard of understanding. “It was beached.” She went back to lifting tentacles cautiously with the spatula: the poor dead thing had none of the marvelous luminescence that they had seen from the cliffs, so maybe it wasn't a bezeri, with any luck. It was too small, anyway. He put his hand out and stopped Parekh's arm.

“Wait until Shan gets here. Leave it.”

She shook him off, eyes all fury. “You don't touch me. Okay?”

There were a couple of muttered comments from the group that he chose not to hear. “Do we have to get permission to piss now?” Galvin said, and the outburst was unusual for her. “It's bad enough having to run every report past her without her supervising our work too.”

“Okay, that's it.” He opened up his database and started paging both Shan and Lindsay, just in case. “I can't sit here and let you do this.”

“No.” Parekh squared up to him. “This has gone far enough. I didn't give up everything I ever cared about on Earth just to come here and take pictures.”

If it been Rayat or any of the men, he could have—would have—hit him. Everything Eddie had been brought up to accept without question stopped him doing what he should have done, and that was to physically restrain Parekh.
But you just didn't hurt girls.

Parekh picked up the crate and made a move towards the hatchway that connected the mess with the corridor leading to the makeshift labs. Eddie stepped into her path and Parekh paused for a pace and then shoved past, no doubt reading those primeval signals that said Eddie wouldn't really hit a woman. She hurried down the passage into the cold room and slammed the hatch behind her.

The biohazard seal hissed and the hatch was locked. Eddie hammered on it and swore a few times, but he had lost the battle. He should have tackled her physically in the mess. But he had no idea then that scientists could be so assertive—nor that he would cave in so easily. The bastards didn't follow rules and regs like marines. He paged Lindsay and Shan again, and waited.

It took way too long. It was ten minutes.

Mesevy and Lindsay came running down the corridor towards him. “Frankland's coming,” Lindsay said. “I've explained to her over the comm what happened. She's spitting nails. She'll crucify me. What the hell was Webster doing? She was supposed to watch her.”

“None of us knew Surendra would go off like that,” said Mesevy. “It's not her fault.”

“How do we get this hatch open now?”

“It's a biohazard seal. We don't.”

Maybe, if the creature had been beached, nobody would care. They might not even need to know. He was still considering diplomatic solutions when the corridor vibrated with heavy, fast steps. Shan, in fatigue pants and a sports vest, strode in and looked at them as if demanding an answer.

She jabbed her thumb at the hatch. “In there?”

“ 'Fraid so,” Eddie said, and stared. There was a long puckered burn scar the length of her left biceps, and sheseemed all muscle. She could have made even a fluffy bathrobe look like combat gear. “She's not coming out voluntarily.”

Shan struck the hatch four or five times with the edge of her fist, steady and insistent. “Parekh, stand away from that body and open this hatch,” she yelled. “Now.”

There was no answer. Shan didn't wait or knock again. “Get me Chahal and Bennett,” she said, looking more towards Mesevy, who obeyed and sprinted away. Shan glared at the hatch. For a moment Eddie almost believed the door would yield to the force of her stare alone. Lindsay was making a valiant attempt to look as if she could do something, hovering round Shan.

“Sorry, ma'am,” she said “I screwed up,”

“Not your fault. She's the one who did it.”

“I should have—”

“But you didn't. No point worrying about that now.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Get her out of there and then start getting seriously worried. I'd like you to clear a cabin we can confine her in. Restrain her if necessary. When the stupid cow comes out, she's under arrest.”

The sound of Bennett and Chahal approaching made them turn. Shan gave Eddie a withering look. He thought she was going to round on him for not stopping Parekh.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked. “A story? Okay. Stand clear and don't get in the way.” She turned to Chahal. “Get that door open.”

“We can either access the seal controls through the deckhead or blow the hatch,” said Chahal, peering at the status panel. He had a belt of tools slung round his waist. “She's activated the central override from inside.”

“Which takes longer?”

“I can get at the seal in about ten minutes with a laser cutter or blow it in five.”

Shan lowered her voice. “Open it from the roof.” She hammered three times on the hatch again, and shouted. “We're blowing the hatch in ten minutes, Parekh. Open up and you don't get hurt. If you don't, the blast might take your face off and right now I don't much care if that happens. Okay?”

There was no response, but Shan had clearly not expected one because Eddie heard Chahal already scrambling across the roof membrane and then a buzzing and faint vibration as he cut through the membrane and into the mechanism beneath. Maybe Parekh would believe the line about blowing the door; Eddie certainly did. Bennett stood with his hands on his hips, staring down at the floor. This was going to end badly.

Shan's face was grim and resigned rather than angry, although she looked drained of blood. “Once it's open, I'll go in and you be prepared to cuff her.”

“I don't have cuffs,” Bennett said.

“Well,
I'll
have to restrain her, then. Got a secure cabin ready?”

“Webster's on to that.”

“Thank fuck she's on to something.”

They waited and watched the opening. The hatch's surface shivered from the stresses being applied to it from the top. Then it sighed gently as the seal broke and the reinforcing bolts yielded within their casing. Shan slammed back the hatch and stared in.

Later, Eddie would find it hard to recall exactly what he had seen. It was over in seconds. Shan said nothing, walked up to a wide-eyed Parekh and landed one hard punch in her face. The woman dropped without a word, sending a tray and its wet contents clattering to the floor.

“Get her out of here,” Shan said to Bennett. Parekh, stunned, struggled to stand up as Bennett grabbed her arm and guided her out. It had taken about thirty seconds: economical, brutal and definitely not the navy way. Lindsay was standing at a discreet distance, grim-faced, having had the sense to clear Shan's path and let her get on with the job. It was clearly the superintendent's speciality.

Shan stood rubbing her right hand. Yes, she
had
hit Parekh hard. “Oh, God,” she sighed, staring at the remains on the floor. “Oh,
God.
I suppose we'd better try to get the poor thing tidied up.”

Eddie watched from the hatchway. Shan found a pair of gloves and pulled them on, and then reached for a small plastic board. There was something undignified and desperately sad about scraping the little corpse together like spilled food, but it was the only option. She slid the remains carefully into the tray.

“You think I'm useless, don't you?” Eddie said, not looking up from the body. “I should have taken it off her.”

“I don't expect a civvie to handle the physical stuff. I would have been amazed if you had. At least you called me.”

“Christ, you really hit her, didn't you?”

“I did indeed. Look, this is serious. It's a juvenile bezeri, and I have to let Aras know. And the really scary thing about this is that I don't know how this is going to end.”

“You're sure about this? Do they have to know?”

“Oh yes.”

Lindsay laid a cloth across the tray, and Shan picked it up and walked out. In the corridor, Mesevy, Rayat and Galvin were standing like witnesses at a crash scene. They said nothing. But it was clear they had seen Parekh dragged away, nose bleeding, and there was no doubt that whether they agreed with her actions or not, she was one of their own. The first lines had been drawn between payload and the command. Life was not going to be cozy in future.

Shan paused at the end of the passage and turned round.

“I need to talk to you in private later,” Shan said to Lindsay. “My cabin, after dinner. In the meantime, make sure Parekh is secured and keep the rest of them away from her. Oh, and I authorize you to reissue sidearms to your detachment.” She glanced at Eddie. “Where's your camera?”

“I wasn't recording,” he said.

“Good,” she said.

 

“What the hell did you think you were doing?”

Shan leaned against the cabin bulkhead, arms folded while Bennett stood against the hatch. Parekh sat huddled on the bunk, knees drawn up, arms wrapped round them. She had two spectacular black eyes.

“It was dead already,” Parekh said.

“It's a bezeri. A juvenile.”

“Well, if you shared some data with us, I wouldn't have needed to take a look, would I?”

“How often do we have to go over this? No samples. And this is why.”

“Look, it was dead already. We can explain.”

“Whoa. Let's rethink our attitude to species, shall we? This isn't roadkill. It's a child. Do you know what this is in human terms? You come across the scene of an accident. There's a dead baby. So you pick up the body and take it away, because you're
curious
. You don't report it, you don't try to contact the parents, you just take it, and slice it up for a few tests. Do you understand? Is any of this getting through to you fucking academics?”

Parekh said nothing and simply absorbed the bollocking. Shan waited, although she wasn't sure why. There was nothing to be gained by the lecture. She turned to Bennett and he stepped back to let her pass before following her out and locking the hatch behind. He was starting to anticipate her movements, like a good deputy.

“How long are you going to keep her in there, ma'am?”

“Until I've made my point to the rest of them and until I know what the price for this is going to be.”

“The others are in the mess hall. We've made them wait for you.”

It was getting to be too much of a habit, herding the payload into a hall and barking at them. The small room was uncomfortably full. The marines stood around the perimeter of the hall at ease, but their sidearms were now visible. It didn't feel like the time she walked into the New Year's Eve party at all. Eddie perched on the end of a bench, part of the group and yet visibly separated, probably making the point that he was just observing.

“Right, people.” She looked round.
Make eye contact with all of them, make it personal.
Champciaux appeared to be the only one at ease, but he probably couldn't see that he would be judged as a
gethes,
not a harmless collector of rocks who happened to keep the wrong company. “I imagine you've all talked about what happened earlier today so I won't bore you with the details. Dr. Parekh is confined to quarters until I've had a response from the bezeri.”

Galvin half-raised her hand. “Is she under arrest?”

“In the sense that she won't be getting out of that cabin until I say so, yes.”

“Was it really necessary to use violence?”

“When words fail, yes, it usually is.”

“And what about us?”

“Confined to base until further notice. I can't overemphasize the risk here. If I haven't made myself clear, this is a final warning. We are not the lords of creation. It's not our planet. And as I have the authority to impose martial law, I will, and that means I will personally shoot any one of you I catch fucking around.”

“I think that's an overreaction,” Rayat said.

“You're grave-robbing. How'd you like
me
rooting around
your
corpse?”

“Makes it worth thinking about having a funeral pyre, that, doesn't it?” Rayat snapped, and shoved past the rest of the group to storm out. Webster, hand resting on her sidearm, blocked his way.

“Don't push your luck,” Shan said. There were a few glances, but the outburst faded into sullen obedience as quickly as it had flared.